Pepys Road: online story about Londoners weathering the crash


Matt sez,

PepysRd.com is an innovative online story based on Capital by John Lanchester, the first big London post-crash novel. Capital interweaves the lives and stories of the residents of Pepys Road, looking at the recent financial crash and its effect on our everyday lives. To support the book, Storythings have been commissioned by Faber and Faber to produce PepysRd.com – a unique interactive story based on Capital that asks you to think about how your own life will be affected by events of the coming ʻlost decadeʼ. How will the financial crisis affect the way we live? Our health? Where we go on holidays? Or our education?

Author John Lanchester has written ten original mini-stories which explore each of the next ten years. Over ten days Pepysrd.com will ask you to think about your future, and how the decisions you make every day affect the world and the people around you. As you progress through the ten installments you make a series of choices that shape the course of your story, and determine where on Pepys Road you might end up living. Each day you discover how your answers compare with those of other users following the story: did you vote with the crowd, or against? Drawing on the themes of the novel and using this individual data PepysRd.com will offer a captivating projection of your life in 2021.

Alongside John Lanchesterʼs stories of the future, artist James Bridle has created four interactive data illustrations which tell stories about our past, present and future using the data trails we create online and in the real world.

Pepys Road – Begin your journey